Nickelback stays course despite negative forces

Beloved by fans, reviled on the Web, and amused by itall

May 24, 2012|By Allison Stewart | Special to the Tribune

Nickelback plays Allstate Arena on Wednesday night.

Go ahead. Make all the jokes you want. Nickelback doesn't care.

Nickelback, the Canadian post-grunge heavyweights beloved by millions of fans but hated by the Internet blogosphere and thus the world, have bigger problems: Like a new flying stage that doesn't fly, exactly. Or trying to figure out their place in a new pop cultural landscape more interested in acts like Rihanna than in them.

In a phoner, bassist Mike Kroeger, who co-founded the band with his brother Chad, talked about the haters, whose movement reached its apotheosis when an online petition sprung up trying to prevent the band from playing a Detroit Lions halftime show last November, its new-ish album, "Here and Now" and a host of other barely printable topics.

Q: The first time you looked at the flying stage, did you say, "Hell no. I'm not getting on that thing"?

A: I do have a little bit of a thing with heights. We did have to make a slight change to the flying stage. It now doesn't fly so much as hover. It was taking so much time to get it into the venues that we had to slim it down, but it does jack up to about 25 feet above the floor. And that's the point where I almost vomit.

Q: At this point, when you're in the studio making an album, is it as fun as it's ever been?

A: Truth be told, making albums was never fun. It's truly a labor of love, really. If you're not pushed to the edge of your sanity, you're probably not making something great. Thankfully, we go into the world of insanity every time we make a record.

Q: How do you and your brother manage to not beat on each other like the brothers in the Black Crowesprobably do?

A: I think those people would probably be fighting whether they were in a band or not. The ones that have that sort of adversarial sibling relationships, well …

Q: The album's first single, "When We Stand Together,"is socially conscious. It's not like you, to have that be the first single.

A: It was more a function of seeing what we could get on the radio. The climate has changed so drastically. To get on a Top 40 station, you can't play guitar. Any kind of band with a guitar is going to have a hard time getting any kind of radio play. And the rock side of things has gone the other way, into the heavier realm. And we have to give them what they need.

Q: You had to go on stage in Detroitand perform at the halftime show, which must have taken a lot of nerve. Did it feel that way at the time?

A: I think that the blowback is kind of hilarious, given the fact that it wasn't limited only to (Internet) posters from Detroit, was it? It was on the World Wide Web, and fishing for haters on the Web is pretty easy. I don't take any of that seriously. It was actually better than usual. … Detroit is our No. 1 market in the world. You've got to understand how hysterically funny that is, when you've got a bunch of people jumping on the soapbox who probably aren't in Detroit.

Q: One music columnist talked about how strange your position must be, to be asked questions all day about why you're so hated, then to go onstage every night and have people worship you. And neither of those things are real.

A: Yes. You've got to keep in mind that those things just don't define you. And they aren't real. They're moments. We go on the road, we make records for our fans, and that's who we work for. It's not hard to find people to join a negative cause on the Internet. You don't have to spend a whole lot of time on there to figure that one out.

Q: There's got to be a backlash to the backlash at some point. You guys are way overdue.

A: (Laughs) I'd prefer to let it fade back into obscurity, where it belongs.

Q: At the shows, audiences seem pretty split between males and females.

A: Yes, and the one thing I'm starting to dig is I'm starting to see black people at Nickelback shows. And I love that.

Q: Do they seem like they know the words, or was it like someone made them go? A white friend, maybe?

A: No, I don't think anyone forced the black people to go to the shows. They were singing all the words. They were having a blast.

Q: You have a lot of misogynistic references to oral sex in your songs. As a woman, I don't love that.

A: You're not a fan of those references?

Q: Not after the 10th or 11th one. I can't be the first person to have ever said this to you.

A: You are! You're the first one. I don't think it's because everybody loves it, but because it takes a little bit of moxie to say something like that. And I can appreciate the fact that you're not into (those) references. I don't think my wife's really into it, either. The references, I mean.

Q: Do you not talk to a lot of women writers?

A: No! I talk to a lot of women writers. But I haven't been asked that question. You got any other ones? Let's go where no woman has gone before with me.

Q: Is someone in the band pushing for those references for demographic reasons, like, "Oh, guys love those"?

A: My brother wants to write a lyric where, when (guitarist Ryan Peake) and I hear it for the first time, we eye-roll at him. Then he'll say, "That's awesome! It's provocative! It provoked you guys. Let's do it." And then we eye-roll some more. To be honest with you, I can't take credit for any of (those) lines.